Katniss sparks a rebellion in this solid 'Hunger Games' sequel

Friday

Nov 22, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By Jane Horwitz, THE WASHINGTON POST

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" PG-13  Teens will likely dive into this second film with gusto, whether they've read the books by Suzanne Collins or not. Director Francis Lawrence sees to it that the characters show grit and that the visual effects continue to startle.

The long film's pacing flags at times, but it pulls you into the bizarre adventures of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) well enough. Haunted by dreams and PTSD-like flashbacks to her first violent Hunger Games, Katniss isn't celebrating her victory. She grieves and braces herself for the next challenge, knowing that President Snow (Donald Sutherland), leader of the fascistic, futuristic land of Panem, wants her dead.

Her defiant performance in her first Hunger Games has inspired a budding revolt he needs to quell. While Katniss tries to enjoy her family and her childhood friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Snow and his new games designer Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) decide to distract the masses by playing up the fake romance between Katniss and her District 12 co-fighter, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Snow declares that the next games will be played not by new fighters  "Tributes"  from each district, but by past winners. This way, he can kill off potential rebel leaders.

Katniss, an ace with a bow and arrow, and Peeta, a gentle bear who can't survive the games without her, must fight again. Their coach Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) advises them to find allies. After a grim victory tour, Katniss and Peeta are dolled up by PR gal Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and designer Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) for their big presentation to the public. They announce they have secretly married and that Katniss is pregnant  both lies.

Once out in the jungle arena for the games, they must fight other humans, predators and poisons. Katniss and Peeta find allies in Finnick (Sam Claflin), Beetee (Jeffrey Wright) and others. The finale makes clear the fight has just begun.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Violent sequences don't show a lot of gore, thus holding onto the PG-13 rating, but we see characters shot, stabbed and pierced by arrows during the games, their skin ravaged by agonizing boils from a poison fog and their lives threatened by vicious monkeys, lightning and a tidal wave. The dialogue includes rare use of the F-word and S-word. Katniss seems to have romantic attractions for both Peeta and Gale, but the sexual innuendo is minimal, apart from a couple of kisses.

"Delivery Man" PG-13  The same director, Ken Scott, has remade his R-rated French Canadian comedy "Starbuck" (2011) as a PG-13 Hollywood film. He pretty successfully recaptures the genial mood of the original, but the story, even slightly sanitized, isn't ideal for middle-schoolers.

Vince Vaughn plays David Wozniak, a good-hearted underachiever who drives the delivery truck for his family's Brooklyn meat business and always owes money. A lawyer for a local sperm bank pays David a shocking visit. Many years ago, David made hundreds of donations to the sperm bank under a pseudonym, "Starbuck," because he needed cash. The sperm bank messed up badly, using David's sperm to help far too many women get pregnant.

As a result, he now has 533 adult children, all of them half-siblings. And 142 of them are petitioning to learn his true identity. Panicked, David goes to his pal Brett (wonderful Chris Pratt), a scattered lawyer raising four small kids alone. Brett promises to help David preserve his privacy. Then David learns that his girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders), a cop, is pregnant. Knowing how undependable David is, Emma's not sure she wants him involved with their child. This spurs David to open the file with profiles of the 142 offspring who want to know him. He starts meeting them without revealing his identity and gets involved in their lives like a guardian angel. One, a severely disabled young man (Sebastien Rene, from the original film), tests David's ability to connect. Another, the hyper-intense Viggo (Adam Chanler-Berat) just tests David's patience. The awkward truth must come out, of course. While the film's good-heartedness is never in doubt, Vaughn never quite shakes off the creepiness factor of one man fathering all those children, then stalking them, however benignly.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The dialogue includes a lot of midrange profanity, mildly crude sexual humor, rare use of the F-word and oblique, slangy references to masturbation. One character has a drug abuse problem. Loan sharks rough David up.

"ENDER'S GAME" PG-13 Teens and sci-fi loving adults can dive into this gorgeously made futuristic saga and its blend of heart, drama, and fantabulous effects. Teens need not be familiar with the 1977 book by Orson Scott Card on which the movie is based, but it might inspire them to read it. Mature tweens would also like the film, and it is fine for them.

Asa Butterfield, who charmed everyone as the boy in Martin Scorsese's 2011 masterpiece "Hugo" (PG), plays Ender, a 12-year-old living in the future. An invasion of Earth by the intergalactic Formics has been defeated, but it is feared they will attack again. Because children have the quickest reflexes from playing computer games, Col. Graff (Harrison Ford) and the psychologist Maj. Anderson (Viola Davis) believe kids are the only ones who can repel a Formic onslaught. They have set up space stations where chosen kids train, fighting complex virtual battles  often while weightless (very cool). Ender impresses Col. Graff, who takes him away from his family to attend battle school. As teacher's pet, Ender faces bullying. He uses his brains to deflect punches and insults from other kids and make them his friends, including Petra (Hailee Steinfeld). Only the mean Bonzo (Moises Arias) won't back off. As the training grows intense, Ender has dreams he can't decipher and moral doubts about the huge, insect-like Formics and Col. Graff's extermination strategy.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The virtual and eventually "real" space battles between Ender and his fellows and the Formics show no gore. There are, however, a number of fights between the kids. One ends in a near-fatal, though bloodless, head injury. The script has one or two instances of mildly crude language. It is the moral issues of genocide raised by Ender that make it a PG-13.

"LAST VEGAS" PG-13  A little too lewd for middle-schoolers, but OK for high-schoolers 15 and older, this story of four aging pals wouldn't seem like a natural for older teens, until you remember they have grandparents. Watching four likable men in their late 60s party in Vegas could generate some laughs. The "Last Vegas" script chugs along on cliches and clumsily crafted conflict, but actors at the level of Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas and Kevin Kline can, at least intermittently, lift the film above its flaws. It opens with a charming prologue showing the friends as boys in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

THE BOTTOM LI NE: The guys have crude nicknames for one another and make a lot of semi-graphic jokes about male and female parts and sex acts. They drink and judge women in a bikini contest who shake their behinds to get votes. The male emcee strips to a thong and shimmies in De Niro's face  a gratuitous moment. Sam's wife (Joanna Gleason) gives him a whatever-happens-in-Vegas blessing.